Bike lanes and landscape design in Athens, Municipality of Nikea, Greece.
DRAWINGS
Bike lanes and landscape design in Athens, Municipality of Nikea
Greek metropolitan cities, such Athens, need a network of major bike lanes with supra-regional characteristics. It is important for a city to connect municipalities and neighborhoods with bike lanes that pass through central roads. Complementary infrastructure should be planned, such as green spaces, pedestrian traffic areas, open-air meeting places and cycle parking spaces at stations across Athens. Needless to say, it is extremely important to protect such an infrastructure from falling into disuse as well as from deterioration.
In order to support the above mentioned strategy, a number of institutional changes and regulations should be introduced, such as:
- The reduction of speed limits on urban roads.
- Restriction of car circulation in large parts of the city. Prior of making such a decision, there is a need to make a thorough study on public transportation upgrade.
- Direct and drastic interventions by municipalities for a sustainable and ecologically friendly city.
- Road Traffic Regulations changes prioritizing the safety of cyclists and pedestrians.
- Development of methods towards participatory planning.
We were given the opportunity to study on a draft – brainstorming level, a cycling road net and the landscaping developed around it, in one of the major municipalities of Athens. We made a conceptual connection of our proposals to the history and culture of the particular municipality so that the inhabitants would welcome and become familiar with these proposals. Unfortunately, in our country the governing models based on participatory planning are not widely used depriving citizens from such participation. We strongly believe that culture is the not only the outcome produced by famous artists and designers but also what is comes as a spontaneous outcome via the anonymous inhabitants of a place.
